Listed: Kid606 + Destroyer + Rebecca Gates

Kid606

During the past few years, Miguel Depedro, better known as Kid606, has taken the music world by storm. His full-length debut, Down With the Scene (Ipecac) was a masterpiece of screaming noise juxtaposed against electronic grooves. Tigerbeat6, the record label that he founded, has taken the DWTS mantra to heart and become a breeding ground for everything from the chaotic clang of the Numbers and Black Dice, to the electro-rap of Gold Chains and Cex, to the space-tronic sounds of Stars as Eyes. His latest release as Kid606, The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You the Fucking Jams brought electronic destruction-via-remix to various pop hits, adding a punk-rock snarl to the normally sedate world of electronic music. The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You the Fucking Jams is currently available on Violent Turd, and Tigerbeat6's "Paws Across America" tour (featuring Cex, Stars as Eyes, and the Numbers) is currently working its way around the land.

Dan Bejar is better know as Destroyer. But perhaps he is best known as a former member of the Canadian ensemble The New Pornographers. While his songwriting work on Mass Romantic was probably his most prominent, his steady stream of Destroyer albums has been the best showcase for his superb songwriting and cryptically haunting lyrics. 2001's Streethawk: A Seduction (Misra) earned him tall critical accolade, but his latest release, This Night (Merge) has earned Bejar attention from a much wider audience.

Honorable Mentions: The Collected Works of The Auteurs, Superconductor - Bastard Song, The Clientele, Montgolfier Brothers, Laura Nyro, those first few Tom Verlaine solo records...

Rebecca Gates

Rebecca Gates and Scott Plouf began playing and recording as the Spinanes in the early nineties. Their early sound was characterised by the spare interplay between Gates' guitar and voice and Plouf's drums; later releases were more textured and incorporated everything from piano to background chatter in the studio. In the intervening decade, Plouf split to join Built to Spill, and Gates moved to Chicago, where she began collaborating with such luminaries as John McEntire and Brian Deck, with whom she produced her last release, the gorgeous, quasi-electronic Ruby Series ep. Currently, Gates is working on a remix of that ep, as well as a new album and a collaboration with Mick Turner of the Dirty Three.